Those who watched a 35-year-old mixed martial artist contest his first-ever fight couldn’t believe it when they heard he’d passed away later in the evening.

Felix Pablo Elochukwu, a Nigerian man living in Hamilton on a student visa, had fought in an amateur mixed martial arts fight at the American Legion in Port Huron, Mich., and collapsed shortly after the fight. He died at Port Huron Hospital last Saturday night, police said.

Results of an autopsy are expected in a week or two.

But Elochukwa’s trainer Jeff Joslin and numerous others who were there and were cited in various reports say the bout was far from a war and the Hamilton-based fighter hadn’t taken anything close to a pounding.

Joslin, who was at the fight, says it was a relatively tame contest. Most of the time, the two 260-pound heavyweights were grappling and wrestling.

“There were no strikes on the feet hardly at all,” he says.

In the third round, the two exhausted fighters went to the mat where Elochukwu ended up on the bottom and was hit with a number of hammer fists — a downward punch with the baby-finger side of the fist — to the head. Unable to defend himself because of fatigue, the referee stepped in and stopped the bout.

The defeated fighter was not knocked out and was coherent after the fight.

Others back up Joslin’s version of the story.

“It’s kind of funny but the first two rounds there wasn’t much going on at all,” said LeAnne Kobe, a photographer who regularly shoots the Amateur Fighting Club in Port Huron which staged the event who was ringside.

“I didn’t even think he got hit that hard. I’ve seen much worse.”

According to reports on multiple websites including The Bloody Elbow devoted to MMA followers the first two rounds of the fight were said to have been mostly grappling, but the fighters both began showing signs of fatigue.

Elochukwu stood on his own steam in the cage during the announcement of the winner and then started walking back to the dressing room. Partway there, he stopped and sat down for a rest citing exhaustion.

Moments after paramedics helped him onto a chair, he fell from it. Joslin — and a report in the Detroit News — says the medical team gave him CPR, and an ambulance was dispatched at 9:31 p.m. Elochukwu was treated and pronounced dead at 10:12 p.m.

By the time Joslin arrived at hospital, he was told Elochukwu had passed away.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he says.

Kobe said few people at the fight realized they had witnessed a tragedy as no announcement was made.

“I don’t think anyone knew what was going on,” said Kobe. “They didn’t want to make an announcement if they hadn’t notified the family.”

Elochukwu had started training at the Concession Street club a year or so ago. Joslin said he walked in the door one day and said he wanted to be a fighter. He had a white belt in jiu jitsu but had won gold medals in all three competitions he’d entered.

“We lost a member of our MMA family, and we would like to take this time to honor him. This is a tragic turn of events. We will keep his family and friends in our prayers and we ask you to do the same. May God be with them in this devastating time of loss. To us, this tragedy will not end today. He will remain in our hearts and on our minds.”

Amateur MMA is legal but not regulated in Michigan. This means extensive pre-fight medical tests are not required for fighters as they would be for professionals. Or as they are in Ontario for professionals.

With files from Spectator Wire Services

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